Civics Improvements Suggestions

[Vokarya]

What are everyone's thoughts regarding Standing Army vs. Volunteer Army?

I think Standing Army might be too good at the moment; it's the hybrid military civic but it does different areas very well. Volunteer Army's primary selling points are +3 XP and -50% war weariness. Both Standing Army and Volunteer Army have equal Great General emergence that I think is worth cutting. Volunteer Army also has -15% military production.

Standing Army also has +25% military production, draft 2/turn, and produce units with food (a mixed point because it gives even more production but shuts down city growth), and, with Parade Grounds, only suffers a penalty of 1 XP that is negated after 20 turns (standard speed). It does have the drawback of some largest city unhappiness.

I'd like to actually replace all of Standing Army's maintenance mechanics for cities and decreased supply cost for units with an INCREASED supply for units. I think that would make more sense and collapse 3 bullet points down to 1. Then cut Standing Army's Great General bonus, military production bonus (leave the drafting and food-production), and unhappiness, and cut Parade Grounds down to 1 XP. That would leave behind a much-simplified civic:

• Produce military units with food
• Draft 2 units per turn
• Units in cities gain XP per turn (scales with game speed)
• +25% distant unit supply cost
  
• Parade Grounds: +1 XP

3 positive abilities, one negative, and one neutral.

 

[Rezca]

What are everyone's thoughts regarding Standing Army vs. Volunteer Army?

I think Standing Army might be too good at the moment; it's the hybrid military civic but it does different areas very well. Volunteer Army's primary selling points are +3 XP and -50% war weariness. Both Standing Army and Volunteer Army have equal Great General emergence that I think is worth cutting. Volunteer Army also has -15% military production.

Standing Army also has +25% military production, draft 2/turn, and produce units with food (a mixed point because it gives even more production but shuts down city growth), and, with Parade Grounds, only suffers a penalty of 1 XP that is negated after 20 turns (standard speed). It does have the drawback of some largest city unhappiness.

I'd like to actually replace all of Standing Army's maintenance mechanics for cities and decreased supply cost for units with an INCREASED supply for units. I think that would make more sense and collapse 3 bullet points down to 1. Then cut Standing Army's Great General bonus, military production bonus (leave the drafting and food-production), and unhappiness, and cut Parade Grounds down to 1 XP. That would leave behind a much-simplified civic:

• Produce military units with food
• Draft 2 units per turn
• Units in cities gain XP per turn (scales with game speed)
• +25% distant unit supply cost
  
• Parade Grounds: +1 XP

3 positive abilities, one negative, and one neutral.

Seems good to me.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I am not sure why you would want to cut the number of great generals. I mean, I know you don't want to have 20 pop up before the middle ages but playing that game I mentioned I have 2-3 of them and I feel that's a fine number to have by the late medieval period. Cutting it down from that would be essentially making them even more rare than they already are. Is that a good thing?

 

[<Nexus>]

OR, other than a straight maintenance increase here, what if we came at this from the other direction? Start reducing the benefits at these levels until the civic becomes completely ineffective. This might be preferred since the maintenance can be overpowered with brute economic force, but progressively reduced benefits would make it a waste of a civic choice with large enough empires.

Republics problems could be solved easily by 2 new XML tags fashioned after <iLargestCityHappiness> and <CapitalYieldModifiers>
Say <LargestCityYieldModifiers> and <LargestCityCommerceModifiers>. So the the +% yields/commerce bonus applies ONLY to your TOP X cities and not all your empire.

I think if we want to pursue making civics viable for longer periods of time, we should really cut down on the bullet points for Vassalage/Fealty. Fealty is the pending rename.

Prior to reaching the Medieval Era, there is a variety of choice in terms of Military civics:

• Conscription is the best for a big army. You get +25% military production and can draft.
• Raiders will produce a big army too, by converting food to hammers. It will cost you in terms of commerce.
• Warrior Caste produces a well-trained (+2 XP) army with about +16% production. It costs you in city growth.
• Mercenaries also produces a trained army, but smaller because of no production bonus and direct costs in upkeep.
• Pacifism is an attempt to forswear war altogether and benefit in other ways.

Fealty, by providing +3 XP at much less cost, seems to blow away both Warrior Caste and Mercenaries. So to make it separate from other military civics, I think Fealty should be the civic that lets you maintain a big army once you build it.

Keep:

• Great General bonus, but lower it to +25%; I think we can cut the GG bonus from other civics, and leave Fealty as the best source of Generals.
  
• -50% distant unit supply costs
  
• Manor building

Add:

• +25% city defense in all cities

Delete:

• +3 XP for new units
• -1 happiness all cities
• -25% military unit production
• Unlimited Noble. Nobility (Rule) and Feudal (Society) would have this ability.

One purpose that Fealty currently serves is being the easiest path to 5 XP and the second promotion for Melee/Archery/Siege units. Without this, to get to 5 XP, you either have to run Theocracy and build its civic building (even if it isn't named, I still know what I want it to do), or get Asatru. Asatru Monastery can boost Melee units to 6 XP with Barracks + Warrior Caste/Mercenaries, and The Sagas can boost any unit to 6 XP. I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing.

I always thought that Vassalage/Fealty should be the best choice in the medieval era but useless later.
So I'd give it no XP bonus at all and make Knight's Stable its civic building (what does Manor have to do with it?).
Maybe I'd remove/further lower the Great General bonus too.

So if you want a good cavalry you use Fealty but when cavalry goes obsolete you need to choose something better.

Abbey does sound like a name that a Theocracy civic building would have. But I'm not sure it sounds like one that would give a military bonus.

Abbey doesn't sound like good militaristic building for me too. How about Templar Keep?

 

[Arakhor]

If we're going to have a two-word name, Temple Keep would be less specific and slightly shorter.

 

[<Nexus>]

Temple Keep would be less specific and slightly shorter.

You're right! I like that

 

[Fozman]

Republics problems could be solved easily by 2 new XML tags fashioned after <iLargestCityHappiness> and <CapitalYieldModifiers>
Say <LargestCityYieldModifiers> and <LargestCityCommerceModifiers>. So the the +% yields/commerce bonus applies ONLY to your TOP X cities and not all your empire.

While this is a thoughtful suggestion, here's my concern: if there is no penalty for big empires on Republic, why bother using Monarchy?

Monarchy: Complexity 7, rating 7.
Monarchy's theme is "big empire". It has seven separate bullet point abilities, all of them good. This is a lot of bullet points for one civic, especially an early one.

• Fixed Borders
• -50% maintenance from number of cities
• -50% maintenance from distance to Palace
• No unhappiness in capital
• Royal Monument building (this will be changed to something else...)

I think these five attributes are pretty much unshakable.

Other than Fixed Borders and less maintenance to overcome there would be no reason to ever use Monarchy when you can have your TOP X cities do well regardless of your empire size. Good economy management makes the extra maintenance trivial, as I've pointed out earlier. Republic needs some kind of throttle governor to let you know you're getting too big for it.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I disagree with the idea that good economy management makes anything trivial. It certainly did not for me. As I have stated before. But I do agree that if you want to make the two be distinct the current dynamic of one providing penalties for size whilst the other provides benefits for size should be kept.

Than again I honestly do think that most of the civics in the game at this moment are just fine and do not need the massive overhaul some people want them to have. Some do, but most don't.

This said, one thing that does need more love is the corporation spread mechanics. Right now you can only really effect that via a small number of civics, all of which are from the same category. So the whole percentage of tax vs reward thing might as well just be +/- 1. It needs more nuance if it is to be a system that one can actually play around with.

 

[<Nexus>]

If the +25% , and were applied to only 5 cities and not all 20 than you will see a great difference and feel Monarchy much more tempting.

 

[Fozman]

I am not sure why you would want to cut the number of great generals. I mean, I know you don't want to have 20 pop up before the middle ages but playing that game I mentioned I have 2-3 of them and I feel that's a fine number to have by the late medieval period. Cutting it down from that would be essentially making them even more rare than they already are. Is that a good thing?

I represent the opposite end of the spectrum again on this. In my game, I had 8-10 Generals in late Medieval after my first few wars without a Charismatic leader.

We certainly are different.

 

[Fozman]

I disagree with the idea that good economy management makes anything trivial.

If the +25% , and were applied to only 5 cities and not all 20 than you will see a great difference and feel Monarchy much more tempting.

Maybe so. I'd be willing to test this theory if the changes go this way. But keep in mind, it was not just me. The AI was doing this as well. So that is the real test.

 

[Rezca]

If the +25% , and were applied to only 5 cities and not all 20 than you will see a great difference and feel Monarchy much more tempting.

This, sounds like a much better solution to Republic. Limit it to the top X cities (based on map size) and then scale down the maintenance costs just a bit, and you'll have a civic that's only useful if your size is so much and growing beyond that doesn't benefit from the civic's bonuses. You can, you just won't get much out of it.

I represent the opposite end of the spectrum again on this. In my game, I had 8-10 Generals in late Medieval after my first few wars without a Charismatic leader.

We certainly are different.

Varies for me, sometimes I get a lot sometimes I don't.

I think that the Generals being a little rarer would also make them that much more precious, and the high leveled troops you produce that much more valuable and thus make you less willing to send them into risky situations (less than 60% odds or etc for me), so in a way it might be a good thing?

 

[<Nexus>]

I think that the Generals being a little rarer would also make them that much more precious, and the high leveled troops you produce that much more valuable and thus make you less willing to send them into risky situations (less than 60% odds or etc for me), so in a way it might be a good thing?

Oh, I never send a Warlord promoted, high level unit into a risky (less than 98% win) situation. I don't want to "cheat" and reload.
...and still sometimes I have to "cheat" and reload.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

If the +25% , and were applied to only 5 cities and not all 20 than you will see a great difference and feel Monarchy much more tempting.

For me monarchy is already tempting enough simply because NOT running it would mean being 20k per turn in the negative.

I represent the opposite end of the spectrum again on this. In my game, I had 8-10 Generals in late Medieval after my first few wars without a Charismatic leader.

We certainly are different.

Wow. Just WOW. Like, what are you doing to achieve that? Do you like declare war on every AI you meed immediately and just constantly conquer all the time?

Maybe so. I'd be willing to test this theory if the changes go this way. But keep in mind, it was not just me. The AI was doing this as well. So that is the real test.

I can send you the save game if you want.

 

[Fozman]

Wow. Just WOW. Like, what are you doing to achieve that? Do you like declare war on every AI you meed immediately and just constantly conquer all the time?

I typically invade if someone cuts off my expansion. When I go to war, I'm not finished until that nation is gone. What happened with this recent game was one of the two nations I decided to evict became a vassal to someone else. Then that someone else pulls in a war ally with a vassal, and they in turn pull in another ally... then some other nation decides to dog pile on me because they don't like my Religion, and so on... Eventually, I just send a stack units to destroy all of them... and 300 or so battles later, I've got a ton of Generals. I'm very warmongery when the AI provokes me like this.

I can send you the save game if you want.

No, that's okay. I was mostly challenging ZN's suggestion that I (or the AI) wouldn't be able to do the same thing I'm doing now with the proposed Republic changes (TOP X cities).

 

[Vokarya]

I am not sure why you would want to cut the number of great generals. I mean, I know you don't want to have 20 pop up before the middle ages but playing that game I mentioned I have 2-3 of them and I feel that's a fine number to have by the late medieval period. Cutting it down from that would be essentially making them even more rare than they already are. Is that a good thing?

The +Great General points mechanic on military civics is being overused. Mercenaries, Vassalage, Standing Army, Volunteer Army, and MAD all have it. That is not a good sign to me. Unless a mechanic is absolutely fundamental to the civic (like health on Welfare civics) I'd like to not use it more than 2-3 times in a category.

 

[Vokarya]

As far as Republic goes, I'm already planning to cut the military production bonus and the capital gold bonus. I'd like to see how that plays.

The next step might be moving the yield bonuses to capital-only. I think that might fit the model better, of one large city with a few satellites.

 

[Rezca]

I typically invade if someone cuts off my expansion. When I go to war, I'm not finished until that nation is gone. What happened with this recent game was one of the two nations I decided to evict became a vassal to someone else. Then that someone else pulls in a war ally with a vassal, and they in turn pull in another ally... then some other nation decides to dog pile on me because they don't like my Religion, and so on... Eventually, I just send a stack units to destroy all of them... and 300 or so battles later, I've got a ton of Generals. I'm very warmongery when the AI provokes me like this.

Sounds a lot like me, with the "bribe everyone into wars!" thrown in for good measure. A while back the "We don't trust you and your nefarious schemes!" was added into the game partially (if not largely) because of that. One game I was the worst enemy of sixteen nations because I had bribed nine nations into war (While I was at peace) over the course of three turns. I'd do that pretty much every game whenever I could get the chance to do it - if an AI was willing to declare war on a neighbor, I'd jump at the chance to mess with the global diplomacy scene

I still take any chance I can get to have the AI hate each other while I stand back at a safe distance not getting involved, but now I can't do it with abandon - and friends of the AI that got declared on start to mistrust me now too. Still worth it

 

[Vokarya]

I always thought that Vassalage/Fealty should be the best choice in the medieval era but useless later.
So I'd give it no XP bonus at all and make Knight's Stable its civic building (what does Manor have to do with it?).
Maybe I'd remove/further lower the Great General bonus too.

So if you want a good cavalry you use Fealty but when cavalry goes obsolete you need to choose something better.

I don't want to reduce Stirrup's trick count any further by moving Knight's Stable away from it. If Knight's Stable was a civic building for a Medieval Era civic, then that would mean KS would have to be moved to a Medieval tech as well.

Aristocracy tech is going away, and its Great General is going to Stirrup; that leaves Stirrup with 4 tricks: Heavy Horseman, Knight's Stable, free Great General, and two later units: Rider and Man-at-Arms. While 2 tricks is the minimum for a viable tech, I feel 4-6 tricks is the sweet spot and I don't want to drop any tech into the 2-3 range.

 

[Vokarya]

Since we cut Fealty and Standing Army down a few bullet points, I think we should cut Pacifism down a little as well.

Pacifism has three separate anti-war points: -75% military production, +100% war weariness, and +200% distant unit supply cost. Individually, each of these is perfectly logical, but I think they are overkill together. I think we should cut the supply cost, along with cutting the unlimited Artist. Pacifism is already the best civic for culture-running, with +30% culture production and +50% Great Person production to help you get Great Artists or Great Engineers to rush culture-wonders.